He was by no means prodigal of the life of his warriors; in fact, he expected to gain more from the mistakes of his enemies than others do from battles; and he knew how to incite his enemies into committing mistakes, as well as to make use of them. He had the enlargement of his kingdom as much at heart as his absolute power. He boldly projected many far-seeing
Elans, and sought with indefatigable zeal to realise them. After he had roken the pride of Novgorod he considered nothing impossible, and regarded his own will as the supreme command. We find no trace of his having been accessible to the petitions of his subjects, or of his granting public audience days for the hearing of their requests and complaints.
Arbitrary power over the common people became stronger and prevailed, and officials abused their power unpunished, for complainants and helpers were wanting. To enlighten the minds of his people through the study of science was not a part of his plans, perhaps because he may have thought that it is easier for the tyrant to rule over rude slaves than over a free-thinking and enlightened people. He must not be denied the merit of having raised great edifices at Moscow by means of foreign, especially Italian, architects; but vanity and love of show probably had more to do with this than artistic sense and taste. The wide and majestic walls of the venerable Kremlin with its battlements and towers, secret underground passages, and fortified gates, were to serve less as objects of beauty than as means of protection against domestic and foreign enemies. Amongst the useful arts he especially favoured those of the cannon founder and silversmith; with the former he desired to terrify his enemies, and with the latter to spread the renown of his power and glory. His greatest services to the Russian state include, besides the regulation of the law code, the increase of the state revenues, partly through the conquest of new provinces, and partly through a better system of taxation, so that the government could collect a treasure for unforeseen emergencies and would become less dependent upon chance.
Thus there can be no doubt that as a prince Ivan ranks high and belongs to the number of those regents who decide the fate of their people and land for many years, and are a blessed or a cursed remembrance to posterity: but neither can it be denied that his greatness and fame lose much when we come to consider him as a man, and see the harshness of his character, his unlimited pride, his contempt of all human rights, his wild and passionate nature, and his greed of power. That he was the founder of autocracy, as modern writers assert, is not altogether his own exclusive merit, although it cannot be denied that he contributed much towards it by his shrewdness and wise moderation. When in the early days of his youth he seized the reins of government, he found much that had been prepared towards the future greatness of Russia; but Russia was still in a chaotic condition, and its forces were scattered and sunk as it were in a lethargy; they required an awakening and regulating hand, and this was principally Ivan's work. Owing to the unfortunate system of appanages, which had been the ruin of Russia for many centuries, by destroying all unity in course of time, sowing the seeds of discord, and making the Russian state an easy prey to its enemies, the idea of a common fatherland had quite disappeared; and the internal dissensions among the princes, as well as the despotic pressure of the foreign barbarians, had so deranged and disjointed it, that the praiseworthy attempts of individual grand princes could meet with no brilliant success, and it seemed as if Russia were fated to play a deeply subordinate part in the hierarchy of states.
Nevertheless those attempts were not quite lost, and the prudent might surmise that the time would yet come when they would bear fruit, once the hydra of discord had been conquered and the scattered forces had been reunited. Ivan's proceedings in this respect were certainly of a macchia- vellian nature. We have seen that for twenty-three years he patiently acknowledged the rights of other Russian princes and even their independence, and that by keeping his conquests to himself and not sharing them with his brothers and the other princes, and by taking his brother's inheritance and giving none to his other brothers, he first began to consider himself as autocrat and ruler of all Russia, and thus gradually prepared the princes for a recognition of his undivided sway and their own impotency and subordination.
We do not inquire as to whether the means he used for the attainment of his end deserve our approval; we will only remark that great conquerors and founders of new empires, or such as reorganise and rejuvenate old and decaying states, cannot be judged with the same standard by which wise regents are judged in regulated states. The resort to violent measures is often their highest duty, if they are to persist in their work and arrive at the aim they have imposed on themselves. From a political point of view, Ivan's harsh proceedings therefore deserve some exculpation, all the more so when we consider that he lived at a time when revolutions of every kind were taking place in the states and their institutions, in the modes of thinking and in the religion of men, in the arts and sciences, the new forms often seeking to supplant the old in a violent manner; and when this change also began in Russia, where intellectual enlightenment was so rare, we should not be surprised to see the forces of brutality often gaining the upper hand over the forces of reason.
We now find ourselves at one of the most important turning points of Russian political history, when by a regulated system of succession and by the incorporation of the independent principalities with the grand principality, the Russian monarchy began to establish itself firmly and to extend its bounds; when the hitherto terrible defiance of over-powerful nobles and of princes who claimed equal rank with the grand prince submits to the restraints of a common obedience; when no more dangers threaten Russia from the side of Novgorod and the Tatars; when a regulated system of taxation, a treasury and an organised army protect the throne; and finally when science and art, the administration of justice, personal safety on the roads and in the towns, besides other blessings of peace and order, also begin to attract attention, protection, and cultivation in Russia.**
accession of vasili ivanovitch (1505 a.d.)
Vasili Ivanovitch succeeded his father, and continued his policy both in foreign and domestic affairs. He endeavoured to extend the frontiers of the Russian monarchy on the Lithuanian side, destroyed the independence of the last appanaged princes and the last'republican township, Pskov, and strove to keep Kazan in subjection.
In his personal character Vasili resembled his father in his sterner aspect. He let his nephew, the unfortunate Dmitri, die "destitute" in prison; over his brothers he maintained a strict surveillance, not allowing his brother Andrew to marry until 1533, when he himself had already two children; with his boyars he was also stern, though there were but few executions and punishments during his reign. He preferred, in case of any suspected intention of departure on the part of a boyar, to take a written guarantee in which the security promised, in the event of departure, to pay a sum of money for those for whom he went bail. Vasili even forgave his brother Simon, who had the intention of going over to Lithuania, and only changed his counsellors. Stern on the occasion of his divorce from his first wife, Vasili was tender towards his second wife, and was very fond of his children. In general the characteristics of Vasili are most faithfully summed up by Karamzin in the following sentence: "He followed the path indicated by the wisdom of his father, without fear, without impulses of passion, moving forward with measured and prudent steps, and drew near to his aim, the aggrandisement of Russia, without leaving to his successor either the duty or the glory of repairing his faults." In the eyes of the historian this, of course, redeems the personally rather stern sides of his character, which were, however, quite comprehensible to contemporaries.1